


Village Tactics

by Project0506



Series: Soft Wars [101]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:54:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25269421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506
Summary: It takes a whole company to raise a kid sometimes.  Other times it takes a gunner and a medic.
Series: Soft Wars [101]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683775
Comments: 41
Kudos: 507





	Village Tactics

“Ahsoka Tano,” a voice slices through the babble of vode on rest, horrifically, terrifyingly evenly.

By the second syllable, she’s monkeylizarded right up his back and perched tippy-toe on the top of his head like a startled jubjub immediately pre-flight. For a breath Hardcase holds very, very still.

There’s a reason he’s usually one of the shooters in Murderball and rarely one of the touchstones. She’s just so _tiny_ and it’s a whole lot more than her body length from his head to the floor if she fell. Sure she’s _Jedi_. But she’s _tiny Jedi_ , a cadet Jedi and also a cadet vod’ika and you gotta be real careful with those: they squish so easy. There’s always that moment of hesitation right as she lands on him where he freezes like an anooba that’s spotted a shadow and can’t tell if it’s a log or a krayt.

“Kixy!” She shrieks, and the bird comparison is ever more fitting. “Kixter. Kixysticks. _Friend_. Hi. How’s life?”

Kix sweeps down the landing like thunderclouds rolling down a mountain. Troopers scrabble promptly from his path and hurl themselves mightily away from his notice. Vode monitoring readouts have never been more dedicated to their jobs. Vode on break have never been more eager to find something far away to do. Conversation hesitantly wanders back out into the command hub but eyes dart their way and words are a distracted stilted. Everyone likes a good dressing down.

Well, Hardcase corrects as the last retreaters flit away leaving nothing but dusty bootprints as evidence they were there, maybe ‘likes’ isn’t the word. Is morbidly fascinated by.

Everyone’s morbidly fascinated by a good dressing down. And Kix is very good at a dressing down.

He’s not the target this time! _Score_!

“What did you _do_?” Hardcase mutters without moving his lips. Maybe he won’t pull the attention his way. Maybe Kix will stay focused on the Togruta lurking on his head. Maybe, maybe.

“Nothing!” She hisses back.

Kix prowls their way with a hunter’s intent. Hardcase feels determinedly stalked.

“Nothing?”

“Probably,” she corrects. “Run for it and I’ll do the Shiny-Sitting Speech next time we hit Coruscant?”

Hardcase doesn’t know what’s going on. He’s tired; he’s got fine dust burrowing into places he’d really rather it not. He’s hungry; he was the last up on the line before they broke through and he’s spent the past day looking forward to the oncoming downtime with something close to feral glee.

Whatever this is sounds like a whole lot of fun. He can’t think of a thing he’d rather be doing. “Hang on!” he laughs. Ahsoka whoops.

Okay so that first step? It admittedly wobbles. Dirt turns under his toes when he spins so his footing isn’t the greatest. Ahsoka shifts on his head and he overcompensates. He knows, logically, that she’ll balance just fine on her own but he _feels_ top-heavy and unbalanced and he maybe windmills his arms. A little.

“You didn’t see that.” He orders and bursts into a sprint. “If the Captain asks I’m _great_ at this.”

She shifts again; he braces his knees and she drops to sit on his shoulders and oh yeah! That works _so_ much better!

“You’re the pinnacle of Murderball performance,” she lies easily. Good enough! Maybe the Captain won’t find out and they won’t run Murderdrills until either Hardcase barfs or can gambol like a plainsbunny while she holds pointe on his bucket.

The Captain’s great fun but he’s also maybe a little bit of a sadist sometimes.

It’s shift change and the outer rooms of the command center are about as packed as they ever get. Troopers mill around in threes and fours, buckets coming off, adrenaline flooding out. A dawdling pack of obstacles in between them and a bid for freedom. “ _Hardcase_ ,” Kix snaps. “Don’t you _dare_.” Brothers are far more willing to dive out of _his_ way than theirs, the smirky traitors. Hardcase stamps hard on a foot poked out to trip him and he’s pretty sure that pained yelp is Fives.

Some _ shebs _1 throws an elbow that Hardcase smacks away. Traitors! All of them! Hardcase doesn’t have a choice does he?

He leaps the ledge.

Gives himself a little bit of a run-up, gets a solid hand on the railing and vaults. It’s a two-storey drop; a little shorter than standard since the locals trend towards squat. Easy day. Oya and laughing curses trails him as he goes.

He takes the landing bent-knees-and-hips, snaps a hand to Ahsoka’s leg to keep her seated but he shouldn’t have worried: she barely budges. “Go go go!” she cheers and he goes.

Lower level’s pretty sparse. A couple of troopers duck as they jumps their gravsled and one or two flatten to the wall as they rush the corridor but in seconds they’re breaking out into the afternoon sun. He dodges a firepit someone’s started digging. Clearly within a hundred feet of the building entrance and Kix’ll have something to say about _that_ for sure. Maybe it’ll be enough to distract him?

Yeah, Hardcase doesn’t hold out too much hope of that.

“He following?”

Ahsoka hums. “I don’t see him,” she confirms. “But he feels very smug right now?”

They break through the last of the off-duty troopers. Brittle, yellow grass crackles under his steps. Pudgy little hills ring the back of the hub but ahead it’s a clear shot straight to the horizon: flat plains rolled out in front of them, nothing taller than knee-high or denser than scrag far as the vis sensors can detect. Great sightlines, for anyone packing weaponry with some range on it.

Hardcase’s comm chimes, right about the point where he considers he maybe miscalculated.

“I have my carbine,” Kix barks and the tinniness of the transmission can’t dampen how dangerously deadpan he sounds, “and access to enough Ketamine to down an entire colony of rampaging bantha. And _you_ personally evaluated my long range requals this cycle.”

He had. He’d watched with something in his brain fizzling quietly in awe as Kix shot inch-tight ten shot clusters one after another at 500 yards. He’d tried not to look _too_ drippy when Kix had frowned at his results, fiddled with his scope and reshot. His shot spread tightened up enough that the impact points overlapped. They had to score it by visual recording instead. Hardcase had only quarter-jokingly told Jesse he’d better make his move fast, or Hardcase would.

“Go,” Ahsoka moans as he slows to a halt. “Hardcase come _on_!”

“We’re both gonna end up shebs over bucket drooling in the dust,” he apologizes. “And you _know_ someone’s gonna take holos where we look as stupid as possible. Remember General Plo’s Lifeday montage last year?”

Hardcase had promised the Captain he’d at least _try_ to let someone else win Dumbass of the Week Chair this cycle. It really is someone not Hardcase-or-Domino’s turn.

She flops dramatically over the top of his head, defeated. “Try anyway?” She pleads, but even she can’t sound convincing.

Kix marches straight-backed out of the command center; he rolls his shoulders as he strides, swings his carbine strap over his head and cross his chest and his every motion is threat.

“They uncorked me at night,” Hardcase replies, warily eyeing the approaching calamity, “but it wasn’t _last_ night.”

“ _ Hut'uun _2!”

“First that’s hurtful.” She shifts, and maybe he’s not used to playing touchstone but he knows a prep for leap when he feels one. He snags hold of her ankle and she curses. “Second you’re not wrong.”

Sorry kid, self-preservation.

“ _Jesse_ would do it.”

Hardcase is in charge of their youngest vode; he knows this trick too. Playing elders against one another was already old when Hardcase was still brewing. “You’re not wrong,” he repeats because she isn’t. Jesse would think avoiding Kix was _great_ fun. The two of them would already be gleefully frolicking down the savanna into the sunset. And would promptly get shot in the shebs and hauled slack-jawed and drooling past far too many vode. “ _Jesse’s_ tube was way less well aerated than he likes to fake.”

If it had been anyone else after them, Hardcase’d maybe take his chances. But he isn’t built for speed or _dodging tranqs_ and Kix as a concept is inevitable. Hardcase really isn’t up to be brought down like an eeopie today.

“Ahsoka Tano come down here so we can have a conversation.”

“I’m okay up here. _Thanks._ ”

Real karking mulish, their kid, and grumpy with it. Hardcase tries not to grin but she sounds like that perfect blend of The General and Jesse he can’t help himself. Kix is much less impressed.

He doesn’t call her on her childishness, doesn’t address awful rudeness of her tone or the look Hardcase _knows_ she’s making. Kix just slows to a stop an arm-and-a-blaster length away and _waits_.

Kix, everyone ends up learning, is inevitable.

Ahsoka grunts something annoyed. She slinks, pointedly deliberate as if it were _entirely_ her choice and no other, down Hardcase’s back and wraps her arms around his neck and legs around his waist. She knocks her montrals against the top of his head and he _shouldn’t_ grin like a madman at her cheek but come on. It's _technically_ 'down'. Comparatively. Their kid is _hilarious_.

She hangs tight to Hardcase’s back and he hitches her up a little, tucks her knees under his elbows so she can sit without having to cling so hard. Kix pinches his nose. Breathes, slowly.

“Ahsoka where are your lightsabers.”

Oh. Uh oh. This is one of those actual Important Conversations isn’t it? Maybe Hardcase _should_ have run.

She shifts, ducks her head as if to hide behind Hardcase’s. “On your thigh clip,” she grumbles.

Harcase checks. Yep, there they both hang, innocently dangling from suture thread tied to a pouch, gently tapping together with the medic’s movements.

“On my thigh clip,” Kix agrees and he’s not even mad at Hardcase and the gunner thinks he kind of wants to cringe too, duck behind Ahsoka instead. “Why’re they on my thigh clip.”

She’s regretting not going all the way down to the ground, Hardcase can tell. It would be much easier to hide her face in his back if she had. Trying to avoid Kix’s cool gaze doesn’t work as well if there’s nothing between you and him.

“Because I dropped em,” she recites.

“Because you dropped them.”

There’s a thing kids do when they know they’re wrong. Shinies do it all the time and the more time Hardcase spends with Ahsoka, the more he thinks it’s not just vode. They’ll get crankier, more petulant. Defensive. They’ll dig in and soon enough you’ll not be gaining any more ground. It’s just like a firefight: they get entrenched and maybe hammering at the front will break through eventually but it’ll be a lot less work and far fewer casualties if you back off a bit and come in from a different angle.

“Hey Kix,” Hardcase tries but is ignored.

“I’m not mad at you-”

“You _sound_ mad.”

“I’m _concerned_ ,” Kix barrels on as though he couldn’t hear her. “Because you dropped _both_ your lightsabers and were weaponless in an active battle. Can you see why I’m having a problem?”

“You _shouldn’t_ because I have the Force still.”

“The Force is fine,” Kix points out. “But if you didn’t need multiple options they wouldn’t have made you get lightsabers in the first place.”

“You’re _not_ -”

“Woah okay there!”

Hardcase retreats. Only a step but it’s enough that Kix seems to realize how much he’s advanced and prompts him to back it up too. The gunner turns, breaks their sightlines. Interrupts the argument brewing before one or the other says something they’re going to regret real quick.

“Let’s have a sec guys. Kix, please? ‘Soka, you okay?”

“ _Yes_ I’m okay. I _have the Force_. I was _fine_ and I would have found them later!”

Hardcase pats one of her knees, more acknowledgment than agreement.

Ahsoka’s arms tighten around his neck and she burrows more determinedly into his back. She knows Kix is right, and she can probably feel the echo of worry Hardcase just spiked. He can’t help himself; he doesn’t remember when he last had a vod’ika as small as her and even little Jedi think that having the Force means they should throw themselves at things first and plan later.

That says a lot, coming from _Hardcase_.

Kix sighs again, and there’s a double serving of frustration in that breath. Hardcase winces; if he can hear it, he’s sure Ahsoka can too. Kix’s right, of course he’s right, but Hardcase has a vod’ika clinging to his back entirely miserable and he really doesn’t like the mood.

“Kix,” he says, warns because there’s a point when correction shifts to lecture and isn’t useful anymore and they’re about there. Their eyes meet and Hardcase tries to express that, everything from ‘she knows’ to ‘you’re right and she knows that too’ to ‘you’re not going to make things better by arguing more’ through the medium of acrobatic eyebrows.

One of the messages, he’s not sure which, gets through. Kix, miraculously, relents. He pats Ahsoka’s other knee.

“I’m not mad,” he says again, and this time he remembers to _sound_ like he’s not mad. “You scared me. I’m sorry. Come on, come down.”

Slowly, reluctantly, she clambers down, glaring at nothing in particular but doesn’t protest when Kix draws her into a loose embrace.

Hardcase politely looks away as they fold into a tiny cluster.

There’s some local bug that’s real fond of the scraggly trees in this area, regardless of the vinegar scent of their frondy, blue-gray leaves. Little thing chirps its insecty little heart out into the dry afternoon heat. It’s an easy thing to focus on, to shut out the quiet conversation a few steps away.

The air’s full of sound if you’re looking, Hardcase finds. There’s a shout and laughter back behind them, a rumble of something starting up and a cough of the same thing dying out just as quickly and the laughs take that tone of teasing. There’s a metallic _tinktink_ where the butt of Kix’s carbine taps against the pair of sabers dancing along his plate.

_That_ sound arrests; Hardcase has the _best_ idea.

* * *

“Did I hit it?”

To her right, Kix lowers his macrobinoculors carefully and, just as carefully doesn’t look at Hardcase. He doesn’t have to: Hardcase could hardly miss the dirt kicked up from the impact point. Behind and above the target.

“That was. Closer,” Hardcase, on her left, lies.

“You are certainly menacing the _hil_ _l_ ,” Kix corrects. “The target isn’t having many concerns yet.” Ahsoka groans.

“Don’t hold your breath when you fire,” Hardcase reminds. “Fire during that moment after you exhale and before you inhale, but don’t just _stop_ breathing or your fingers get the jitters. If you’re not ready to shoot between one breath wait for the next one, don’t hold it.”

He glances down. Kicks at her ankles. “Relax,” he orders.

“I _am_ relaxed,” she grits but obeys and she sinks into a more natural kneel. Kix’s carbine seems strange in her grip, but oddly almost-right.

She’ll be a rifle person, Hardcase can feel it. A 15S maybe, with a 17LR backup. He’ll get Tinker to cut her a custom stock, something in really cool colors. Torrent blue obviously, but maybe some silver racing stripes! Cut her a custom grip for her tiny hands, custom strap for her tiny shoulders. Just as soon as she starts mostly hitting kind of close to the target.

“Sights, picture, breathe, fire,” he quotes and she mumbles along; seats the butt more firmly against her shoulder pocket and adjusts where her cheek lays on the stock so she can see through the sights. “Take your time, we haven’t started shooting back at you yet.”

“Kark you kindly _ shabuir _3.”

Kix, Hardcase notes, tries to pretend he’s not grinning too.

She fires. Her finger tightens too much on the trigger. Hardcase can see the barrel jerk down on fire, knows without looking that that round’s going into the dirt. A plume of dust kicks up from tens of feet in front of the target. Kix fixes his macrobinocs down range; he doesn’t look at him.

“That was closer,” Hardcase lies. “Try again.”

“I’m really bad at this.”

“Yeah you really are. Try again.”

“Ugh.”

She lines up again.

It might take a while. They might be out here all shift and maybe Hardcase will need to trade with someone for tomorrow too.

She fires.

“That … wasn’t _as_ bad.”

“Remind me to check your eyes.” Hardcase isn’t sure which of them Kix means.

Ahsoka Tano is _their_ _kid_. Torrent’s Padawan, and that makes her basically Hardcase’s kid. And no kid of _Hardcase_ is gonna grow up without knowing how to shoot. If she ever drops her sabers again, he needs to know she can pick something else up and defend herself.

“Try again.”

Even if it takes a while.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Ass. Back  
> 2\. Coward. Back  
> 3\. Jerk, asshole. Back  
> 


End file.
